I’ve had quite a busy week. It is even tough to squeeze in this short post.

Sometimes I have too many ideas for stories and scenes. At the moment I have 4 novels on the go:

“A Tale of Two Tigers”

“Falling”

“The Story of Two Sorcerers”

“You’ve Gotta be Psychic”

Well, I am actually only actively working with “Curse of Wedding Veil Nine” which is the first half of “A Tale of Two Tigers”. The second half of that novel, “Doom of the Bok Globule” I am also doing some work on.

“Falling” is another novel I have in the works, though mostly I am reconsidering the story arcs within it.

A game map created to help set the mood for a game set on the continent of Havne on the world of Verden.

“The Story of Two Sorcerers” is one I have worked on in a few incarnations, but the plot is solidified now. It is one story set in the world I created for gaming purposes. That is the world of “Verden“.

With “You’ve Gotta be Psychic”, I did a lot of work on, in the past, but am reconsidering whether the plot I have has too many characters.

Of course with best laid plans… life is stepping in and a series of appointments and other commitments are taking precedence. That means that I am keeping up, though barely.

This “We’ll Make Cents” penny done in 2013 represents both “We’ll Make Cents” and Auckland NZ where they operate out of. The fern is a symbol of New Zealand

I have been quite busy as well with a fund-raising organization I volunteer at. It eats up a lot of my writing time, but is very rewarding work. If you are in the Auckland, New Zealand area, in particular, you might be interested in looking up “We’ll Make Cents“. Even if you aren’t in New Zealand, you might be interested. The projects we’re raising money for are worthy of supporting.

I’ve been going through “Curse of Wedding Veil Nine” a chapter at a time, modifying it from the version created for the Star Citizen forums. I’m doing a chapter a week.. or more accurately two chapters every two weeks. I tend to do the two chapters at the same time. I am using MS One Note to keep track of things in the story — like people, places, and things. It’s working fairly nicely. I’ll have to do a review of it in a future entry.

I have also been working on a number of my blogs and trying to keep up to the schedule I created. So far so good with the blogs:

Perhaps 9 blogs a week is a bit ambitious, especially when one of them actually is three a week. That makes around 11 blog entries a week.

I have been quite busy as well with a fund-raising organization I volunteer at. It eats up a lot of my writing time, but is very rewarding work. If you are in the Auckland, New Zealand area, in particular, you might be interested in looking up “We’ll Make Cents“. Even if you aren’t in New Zealand, you might be interested. The projects we’re raising money for are worthy of supporting.

I have fallen a bit behind on my cartoon strips on “The Gnome Tapestry“. Well, I am on the verge of being behind. I publish one on Saturday and another on Sunday. I also normally publish a “Coming Up in the Tapestry” post on Wednesday. (It is supposed to be published at about the same time as this entry here should be made. I’ll get the two strips done on time, but I can’t promise that “Coming Up in the Tapestry“will be out before Thursday.

I have also done a little work on my collection of ghost stories which is set in Port Moody, BC. I have stories in that anthology that are in a number of stages of completed with some written and being proofread, some being edited, some in first draft, and some yet to be written. More on that in future.

“Curse of Wedding Veil Nine” is the first part, which involves the discover of two derelict spacecraft. The setting is in the future at a time when interstellar travel takes place regularly by way of “jump gates”. The tale revolves around an explorer in a seldom travelled star system. I am in the process of rewriting it at the moment.

An image of Thackeray’s Globules, a set of Bok globules in the H II region IC 2944, taken with the WFPC2 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Doom of the Bok Globule” is the sequel to “Curse of Wedding Veil Nine“. I am about 1/3 of the way into writing that, but I think that I might not work much on it until “Curse of Wedding Veil Nine” is rewritten. “Doom of the Bok Globule” is set in a different star system. This one has no record of ever being explored.

I think they would qualify as relatively “hard” science fiction with a suspense element thrown in. I’m stepping a little out of my comfort zone in writing the two stories. Others might not think so, but I am not experienced with writing “suspense” stories.

“The Gnomestead Tapestry” — my light fantasy comedy cartoon. There are a few very long stories among to start with, followed by short pieces more recently. The more recent stories are either complete in a single post or in two or three posts.

“Wheel Tales of Willow City” — an editorial cartoon mostly revolving around the issues people with disabilities face. I was surprised at how many stories I have completed in “Wheel Tales”. Each post in “Wheel Tales of Willow City” has a complete story.

“Space Trek” — a bit of science fiction farce and satire. I have some short pieces a few longer pieces and one continuing serial. “A New Omen!” will be going on for quite a while, but I try to make each post interesting in itself.

I have done some work on a science fiction novel called “Two Tigers”. I have about 1/2 – 3/4 of the novel finished. I have two fantasy novels underway as well and a collection of ghost stories.

I’ve joined a writers’ workshop and this has greatly helped my writing. It is a group of authors and budding authors who gather every two weeks to critique a chapter of each others writing. This workshop has also inspired me and I have realized a few problems I have had with writing. I think I’ll complete some of the projects I have that are languishing.

I am also going to try to be writing posts regularly on this site and others I run.

For the last couple of months I’ve been concentrating on my cartoon strip “The Gnomestead Tapestry”. I decided last fall that I was going to publish them as slide-shows on video. It seems to be the best format for the cartoon strips. They’re quite entertaining displayed that way. I’m still not quite decided whether I’m going to leave him silent, or supply narration, or simply add the musical soundtrack. Perhaps I’ll add narration, a musical soundtrack, and some sound effects. I have high hopes to be able to produce one a month eventually. For now it looks like one every two or three months might be more realistic. This last one I’m working on looks like it’s going to be about twice as long as the one I’ve done up to date.

Desktop of a comic strip artist (Photo credit: sinanyuzakli)

I do know one thing, I have plenty of material for new stories — even an idea for a spinoff that has a storyline that will intertwine with the main one. I am not worried about running dry for story ideas.

I am confident that I will be getting back to doing other writing than the cartoon strips. The cartoon strips keep the creative juices flowing. I think people will also find them very entertaining.

It’s not quite like what they had in Star Trek — but now my computer is fully capable of listening to what I say and typing it on the screen. It takes a little getting used to. You have to consider everything that you say, and include all the punctuation as you speak. I do believe that once you get used to it it will be much faster than typing. It is incredibly accurate in understanding what I’m saying. It works much better then the OCR software for scanning text off of images in accuracy.

OCR software seems to me to be less than 80% accurate. At least that was what it was like the last time I tried using it.

Still, it requires a whole new method of thinking. I imagine that businessmen who are used to transcribing onto Dictaphone’s will have no problem with this. They are used to putting their thoughts into words that a secretary can transcribe from.

For quite while I have used the following signature/byline for my forum posts and email.

__/ Darrell Wade Penner \_______________

“Sapientia Propter Amorem” ~O~ (Wisdom Out Of Love)

Contrary to rumours I do not look at the world through rose coloured glasses. I have rose coloured bifocals. While they allow me to still see the yucky bits so I can do what I can about them, they also let me enjoy the good, perhaps to escape a little and so not become hardened and despair. – DWP

The first part is a motto I created for myself. I had been creating one of my first websites and I was looking at the idea of setting it up like a virtual campus with buildings representing various facets of my personality. A lot of it would be centred on a combination library-gallery and I wanted to put that in a classical style building with marble columns complete with a dome and maybe even a cupola. I figured that such a building would have a motto carved over the entrance and wanted one of my own rather than borrowing one.I also belong to the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) — a medieval recreation society — and having a motto to place on my coat of arms would be a nice touch.

I had for philosophical and spiritual reasons considered things like my personal life philosophy and religion and had already and came up with the idea that true wisdom really is born out of love. There are many different sorts of love of course, but a love of exploration, a love of kin or country, a love of tinkering… all lead to wisdom really, in the end because the lead to doing things better and putting your heart into it.

I also had this mistaken belief that heraldic mottos had to be in Latin or some such language and so I had “Wisdom Out of Love” Translated into Latin and so “Sapientia Propter Amorem” came to be. Later I added the translation.

The second part, about the “Rose Coloured Bifocals” came from feeling a bit defensive. I worried that people on forums mistook my optimistic viewpoint for being blind to the sorrows of life. I thought they might think that I might be turning a blind eye to the darker issues of the world. I wanted to say something that said that I did see and acknowledge the darker side of the world, and that I even worked to do what I could to right things. But at the same time, I could still look at and see the lighter side of life and I could live with hope in my heart drawing spiritual strength from the positive. I still think that a positive outlook helps me cope and gives me the strength to thrive where I might otherwise flounder.

So I took my thoughts on it and tried to put them down in an easy to read signature statement. I wanted to tell people I didn’t have “rose coloured glasses” which blinded me to what was wrong in the world. But that like bifocals let me see both the bad, but also focus on the good.

Prose can be both Fiction and Non-fiction, but I thought not to create a Prose category to go opposite Poetry as there is no need for any rigid dichotomy. Instead I’ll have things broken into Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry. Those sections will be broken down further as needed.

I have decided that my writing on fictional worlds should be included in non-fiction as will my gaming work. They can be thought of as writing and gaming aids even though fictional in content they are non-fiction in purpose. Fiction and non-fiction will be broken up as appropriate. One section in Fiction will be for my Cartoon Strips.

This site will be representing me to the World at Large. I plan on posting examples of my writing and other creative endeavours to share with readers and publishers. That means there will be a wide scope of material here. If I do my job, you shouldn’t be bored for I have broad interests and you should find something you have an interest in.

I write about many things, but I have a few ideas on what I plan on including on dwpenner.ca. They may stretch onto sub-domains of their own, but we shall cross that bridge when we get there.

Of course I shall be writing little off the cuff things like this within the message log — messages about the blog itself and messages about my writing and what is influencing it. I’ll be following the pattern of those writers I admire. I also will be including more formal things — things like various types and topics of writing that I do as examples of my expression of this craft of communication.

There are a few novels I am working on and I plan on including excerpts from them. I also will probably at least describe them and the short story collections I am working on. I have a cartoon strip I am working on as well. There are nonfiction pieces I have in the works as well which range from articles to books. There also is my poetry, though I am not sure of the audience for that. Poetry, sometimes I think is a lost writing form with only a small percentage of the population having any interest in it.

I do have a great love of science and have plans on a series of articles on celestial bodies… I want to see how I can put them into terms so that others might see more wonder in the sky and what they might here in the peppering of science reports they might catch on the news. There are many things in the night sky we know of now that were mere dreams when I was a child.

I’d like to write some here about anthropological finds too…. well, lets just say I love to write.